Stone - Sublimely Self Righteous Ale

In celebration of this week being "stone week" here in KC, I figured I had to do atleast one review of a Stone brew. Thankfully I did not have to have this one shipped to me from my insider source within the brewery, but picked it up at my local liquor store for a price that kills alot of other breweries bombers. 6 bucks for a bomber is a killer deal for such a fantastic brew, and the fact that you can pick up the other so-cal craft brew great (lagunitas) bombers for around 5, even limited edition brews! Long story short, so-Cal beer is going to take over KC, and I hate to say it but, it may just give our KC giant a run for their money and may make them reconsider their 8 and up to 13 dollar bomber price...
OK so I'm supposed to be reviewing beer here aren't I?..
OK so it pours a really dark brown/red with a 2 finger head into the Stone Sniffer that was so generously provided by my in side wo-man. It smells of healthy hops, toffee and Carmel. At first the lacing seemed to be mid to light, but by the time that I was on my last snifter it was nothing but heavy. Like Michael J Fox heavy...
On the taste front, this is definitely a Stone brew. Big loud and proud. At first taste, my first thought was "damn, that's bitter", but it mellowed a good amount as I drank more and it warmed up, as did I. The flavor backbone mirrors the smell very close. It has a nice hoppy bitterness with a slight coffee,toffee/brown sugar undertone. There is a good grapefruit citrus acidity in there too that keeps the bite fresh on your tongue while allowing the beer to finish nice and clean.
It has a medium body that while still being a mouthful is still refreshing and not too over powering.
This beer definately gets 4 and 1/2 stars, and has earned a definitive place in my fridge.

Lagunitas - Wilco Tango Foxtrot

Holy Jesus... I didn't think I was going to like this very much on first drink... but boy was I wrong!
I am glad that I chose to pour this into a tulip since this beer is more stout or porter than brown ale. Lagunitas considers this an imperial brown ale, or an American strong brown ale... but hell whatever it is, its dark and creamy. It pours with a huge head that is nice and airy but doesn't stick around for a long time. It has a typical aroma that you would expect, but with a little more of am alcohol over tone. As the level of booze quickly goes down in your glass it leaves a heavy lacing that sticks around for a looooooooong time.
OK so now on the taste front, this beer is f'ing creamy. It is kind of a blend of alot of different beer styles. It has a dark, creamy and malty flavor of a stout, the brown sugar undertones of a brown ale, and the slight nuttiness of an irish red. It has some slight hints of toffee, coffee, and a little hoppy bitterness. Its kind of an odd combination, but I like it. It is kind of like one of their brewers got bored and decided to dump all of their favorite brews into one bottle and just to see what happens.
Whatever the case may be, lagunitas 2 thumbs up to you, one for the fantastic beer, the other for being so awesome with the pricing of your bombers. This Guy totally gets a 4 out of 5 in my book (even though the flavor wheel says 3... i wrote that out before i knew i liked it alot).

Avery - collaboration not litigation

This is a weird beer, this is not a bad thing. As a matter of fact, I love this beer. It is very possibly one of my favorite beers at the moment.

The "black and tan" or how I learned to stop caring and love dark beers

Like alot of people I never liked dark beers, always saying "i dont want to chew my beer!". The problem is that, like many americans, I am not the biggest fan of bitter beers or those that have a heavy coffee taste. I am not a coffee drinker as it is, so why would I want my beer to taste like it? Mainly I got brain washed (like many have) that bud heavy and pbr are beer... I am sorry, but they are to beer what Dr. Dre is to punk rock... The beers I guzzled in college only deserve the name of beer as they will get you get you drunk if you drink a absolute gigantic ammount of it.
As time went on living in KC I got more interested in craft beers, the Boulevard brewery was right down the street and I got heavily into their wheat beer. Then I dicovered a couple of liqour stores that had beers I had only heard in whispers as I passed bars on the weekends. All of a sudden I was randomly buying beers off the shelf and finding some amazing stuff and some really bad stuff posing in a fancy expensive bottle. But there were still few dark beers that struck my fancy. I tried porters, stouts, oatmeal stouts, chocolate stouts and porters. Then I thought back to a drink named the "black and tan", you may have heard of it...

Avery Ellies Brown Ale

This brewery always suprises me, I dont believe there has ever been a beer from this brewery that I dont like. That being said, I like this beer, but I dont "looooovvvvve" this beer...

It has a very sugary ale smell to it, and tastes very similar. It has a slight malty  and a very sugary body. I just wish it would have had a thicker body. The finish of the beer is a slightly white sugar, when I was hoping for a more brown sugar finish.

Ok so now that I am done bashing it, I really do like this beer, I just wish it was just a little better. It is a pretty crisp brown ale that is mighty refreshing from a great company that I dont mind supporting.